Bruises (BWWM)

19

19

Ben

I circled the humongous property twice before noticing an opened window on the second floor. I dropped my bag to the floor and started climbing towards it, my fingers gripping onto the rim of the window below the one I wanted to jump in, my feet resting on the cemented red bricks for support. I propulsed my body forward to reach the pronounced outer edge of the window and I poked my head inside.

What I saw left me astonished.

Piles of junk filled the entire room, forming mounts of useless stuff like crumbled cardboard boxes, empty water bottles, broken down chairs, moldy books, crushed cans, chewed pens, old newspapers, magazines which fashion had expired long ago, VHS cassettes, three broken lamps and much more that was spread into compact masses across the whole space.

I had to refrain myself from whistling at the mess of the whole thing. How could a house this beautiful be so soiled on the inside? Was everything about Kassi much more than just looks? Because, she looked rich, she looked clean, she looked to have it all under control, but this, this was disgusting.

I almost gasped at the strange sight of the few fake flowers resting onto one of the piles of trash. As if someone had left them there to mourn the old state of the room and...

My fingers started to slip from the edge, my two legs swinging from the house. I had climbed buildings higher than this one, but they always had balconies for me to jump and stand on. I was a virgin to this and it felt like I was doing something absolutely wrong.

"Help!" I let out, in a desperate attempt to catch Kassi's attention. And it worked. I heard a few muffled quick steps coming towards the room I had previously gazed at. As I sensed that my hands were becoming even more slippery, I realized that on that very moment, I was, for an unknown reason, truly afraid. I usually wasn't scared of heights or hurting myself, but today, I was terrified of the bruises; I didn't want to face them, I had enough of them.

As I felt myself let go, ready to dive headlong into an endless fall, two hands ensnarled my wrists and tried to lift me up. I opened eyes I didn't even know I had shut and saw Kassi, trying her best to lift me up. Startled, I pushed my feet against the wall and propelled the rest of my body upwards with her help. She was still tugging on my arms as I finally got inside the junkyard of a room.

Kassi looked ashamed, strained, refusing to really look into my eyes. She was more drifting into them, like to give the appearance that she was really addressing herself to me when she boomed out :

"What were you doing climbing into my house? You know you could've just called me if you wanted to talk instead of going all Edmund Hillary on me."

"Well, it's not like I had much of a choice. I mean, would you really have settled into talking to me if I hadn't tried to break into your place?" I countered with, dropping nothing but the truth.

She clearly but reluctantly agreed as she conceded :

"Go ahead with what you need to tell me." She crossed her arms, a look of disdain smeared over her angelic features. "Quickly." Her usually sleeked hair was now messily resting atop her brown shoulders.

But I couldn't bring himself to ask the question that had pushed me to come here in the first place. I was still shocked from the state of the room. I scanned it again and noticed that even more junk was hidden under the first superficial layer of useless stuff.

"How did the room get like that?" I inadvertently breathed out, moving my eyes from side to side.

"I don't know," she snapped, "Ask my mom, she's the hoarder. Ask her why her beautiful home is filled with junk. Ask her why she scared off my dad to Europe. Ask her why she does this to herself. Ask her why she does this to me."